November 2007 archive

Nov 20 2007

Michael Vick is in prison; why is human torture OK?

Take a look at this tortured dog:

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(photo courtesy of the Humane Society of the United States, with permission)

This is one of the poor dogs that was lucky enough to survive the torture inflicted on him at Michael Vick’s fancy house (and dog torture camp) in Virginia.

Other dogs were not so “fortunate.”

According to prosecutors, Vick and his cohorts began purchasing pit bull puppies in late-2001 and would eventually “sponsor” individual dog fights with purses as high as $26,000. In the indictment’s most harrowing parts, federal investigators describe what happened to some Bad Newz Kennels dogs that either lost matches or did not perform well in test fights. After a March 2003 loss by a female pit bull, codefendant Purnell Peace, “after consulting with Vick,” electrocuted the animal. In April, prosecutors allege, Vick, Peace, and Quanis Phillips, “executed approximately 8 dogs that did not perform well in ‘testing’ sessions.” These animals, the indictment claims, were killed “by various methods, including hanging, drowning, and slamming at least one dog’s body to the ground.”

Source and link to indictment

Mr. Vick entered prison today.  He has pled guilty to federal charges related to illegal gambling and dogfighting.  He was scheduled to be sentenced on these charges on December 10.

Former American football star Michael Vick turned himself over to US marshals here Monday to begin serving a prison sentence for his role in a dogfighting conspiracy.

Vick, a National Football League star with the Atlanta Falcons before the dogfighting scandal ruined his career, and three co-defendants pleaded guilty to one count of interstate travel to aid illegal gambling and dogfighting.

Source ~ Agence France Press

How incredibly sad this all is.  

Notable for his 2001 NFL Draft pick from Virginia Tech, league records, and lucrative endorsements, his ban from the Falcons team in 2007 was due to involvement with illegal dogfighting and gambling activities and garnered him notoriety in animal cruelty awareness and enforcement.

Source

A young man with the world by a string — a gifted athlete with a multi-million-dollar contract with which he could have done so much good.  And he chose to spend his money torturing dogs — apparently for fun and profit.

I cannot begin to comprehend what would motivate anyone to torture animals, for any reason.  Even more mind-boggling to me is the idea that someone with all the money in the world would choose to spend it to place bets on animal torture.

But countries, like fish, rot from the head down, and I cannot help but think tonight, as well, that we now live in a country where debates about the torture of human beings have become part of our lexicon — and acceptable.  We live in a country where candidates for the highest office in the land think it is okay to endorse (publicly) a form of torture used during the Spanish Inquisition:

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I abhor what Michael Vick did.  I am glad he is going to prison.  He deserves to go to prison.

But what kind of message are the Republican candidates for President sending to the children of this country with their pro-torture talking points? Or to the rest of the world?

Torture, cruelty in any form, whether toward people or animals, is simply not acceptable. Ever.  Not here.  Not in the country we live in.  That’s the message we should be sending.

Nov 20 2007

The Stars Hollow Gazette

Oh great.

I get to be the one to push Pretty Bird Woman House down.  Well I don’t care what you think.

I’m actually kind of happy with where we are as a blog.

I’m incredibly impressed with the quality of our original content.  Our comments are overwhelmingly witty and thoughtful and frankly- there are a fair amount of them.

As a group we’re working to make this a place that people feel comfortable expressing themselves.  There are no bad ideas, only bad actors.  Wrong! is just a rating and has virtually no effect on your standing here.  Hide is for content that is offensive.  There is no Auto Ban, your fate is decided in the committee of 30+ Contributing Editors and Admins.

This particular mini rant is inspired by the remarks of my activist brother (who also has an account on dK I gave him as a gift).  When I talked with him today he was all excited and worried about a comment he had made here!

Well Michael, you’re part of the family and I feel naturally protective, but this is a pillow fight.  Your disapproval of each other can NOT be used to harm you here.

For the most part that’s true wherever you are and yet people are so defensive.

Nov 20 2007

America’s fractional self-esteem

According to William James, arguably one of the most insightful students of the mind, certainly since his own time, self-esteem can be represented as a fraction, with one’s pretensions in the denominator, and one’s actual successes in the numerator:

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Thus, one can increase self-esteem either by increasing the numerator by increasing actual successes, or by decreasing one’s pretenses to greatness.  It was James’s claim that both self-satisfaction (high self-esteem) and self-abasement (low self-esteem) are intimately related emotional primitives.  The barometer of self-esteem could wax and wane seemingly due to various organic causes from day to day, but in non-pathological cases, it was overall subject to personal dispositions toward pretense and reality-based, objective outcomes.

Nov 20 2007

Jay Severin Lashes out

“Don’t tell the station who to put on the air”, either listen or don’t, he said.  I do believe he was foaming at the mouth and I don’t think I ever heard him loose it.  The topic was Don Imus and the “small minority of kooks” who want him back on the air.

Most maintain Don Imus was fired because of a nappy headed ho remark but my thinking goes a little further.  The remark that gave them an excuse.

Don before his departure made references to the autism-thimerosal connection.  Any anti-Illuminati watcher will tell you big pharma does not allow dissemination of information casting doubts upon the Godlike benevolence of western allopathic medicine.

http://www.propagandamatrix.co…

Don also promoted green cleaners.  Apparently the kids, loaded with cancer at the ranch tolerated it far better than the other toxic crap.  Again see above but fill in chemical industry.

Also some of Don’s shows seemed to show an irreverance toward mainstream thinking and were starting to break out of the boundaries of “accepted” American “journalism”.  

http://www.projectcensored.org/

Don was just not playing the prescribed ball.

Why just this week testimony before Congress was going on about associating this group

http://www.ae911truth.org/

with Islamic “terrorist” websites.

Myself?  I think it would really suck and I will pull my internet plug the first day I notice the net becoming a vacuous airheaded shopping mall like AOL.

Comcast is approaching that venue already.

Nov 20 2007

How I learned to Savor Thanksgiving

This is a Diary that in one form or another has run at Daily Kos for the past three years. A number of people have asked me to post it again, and I thought my friends at docudharma might also be interested. This is a heavily edited version of last’s year’s piece:

I forced myself to watch the History Channel’s Desperate Crossing: The Untold Story of the Mayflower last weekend. I don’t feel as if I totally wasted my time. Including performances and interviews of some Wampanoags, descendants of the indigenes who saw the Puritans make landfall 387 years ago, made the program a good deal more palatable than it might have been.

I would have preferred a bit more about how one reason the Pilgrims were “persecuted” in England and Holland was because of their efforts to get everyone to comply with their own crabbed view of religion. Something they also did here in America. Not dissimilar from what some modern day others would like to do now. But what an improvement the program was over past efforts.

Nov 20 2007

Pony Party: Best of?

A while back, our fearless leader suggested that we have some sort of Top Comments-ish diary series. I was thinking that the Monday afternoon open thread could serve as a forum where people link to their favorite comments and essays over the past week. For instance, I really enjoyed Nightprowlkitty’s essay this past Friday – a must-read, in opinion of this humble pickle.

So, is this a good idea? Should it be more formal? If so, will you help out?

What are your favorite dharmatic moments of the past week?

Nov 19 2007

Your World, According to the Right (Four Fables)




This Essay is no big deal.

I simply had a few moments before the markets closed — as I watched the Dow crumble along with the Dollar — so I thought I would read a few blogs on the Right and see what they’re talking about today. I like to read the Right Wing blogs when they discuss the economy. The Right thinks America has a grrrreat economy. Most of the time, it’s really pretty funny (gawd they’re dumb) but overall, their “optimism” can be a soothing balm after a big dose of reality.

Anyway, I noticed four “busy” topics over there I thought I would bring back here. (Plus, I’ve added a little note on each about how your fellow-voters see America and your place in it):

Some House Backers of Thompson Are Starting to Lose the Faith

Several House Republicans who endorsed Fred Thompson for president now say that they are frustrated with what they view as an apathetic campaign, and at least one regrets having committed to the former Tennessee senator.

“I think he’s kind of done a belly flop,” said an estranged Thompson backer who indicated he will not pull his public support before the “Super Tuesday” primaries. “We’ll just wait till after Feb. 5 because I think he’s going to get beat.”

The disaffected members of team Thompson say that he has failed to put to rest whispers that he is unwilling to campaign hard enough to win the presidency.

“He seems to be perpetuating it instead of defeating it,” another dissatisfied Thompson backer told CQ Politics. “I can’t see me bailing on him, but there’s some frustration.”

___________________________________________________________________________

Typical Right Wing Reaction: “I started reading the article, but I stopped because it was a crock.”

U.S. Prison System a ‘Costly Failure’  

The report calls for a major overhaul of the US justice system.

The US prison population has risen eight-fold since 1970, with little impact on crime but at great cost to the taxpayer, researchers say.

There are more than 1.5 million people in US state and federal jails, a report by a Washington-based criminal justice research group, the JFA Institute says.

Inmate numbers are projected to rise by 192,000 in five years, costing $27.5bn (£13.44bn) to build and run jails.

The JFA recommends reducing the number and length of sentences.

The Unlocking America report, which was published on Monday, also advocated changing terms of parole and finding alternatives to prison as part of a major overhaul of the US justice system.

“There is no evidence that keeping people in prison longer makes us any safer,” said JFA president James Austin.

___________________________________________________________________________

Typical Right Wing Reaction:  “Liberals want prison reform because their base is mostly felons.”





Nov 19 2007

I Want Olbermann to Cover Pretty Bird Woman House

Olbermann’s contact information

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Artwork by Tigana.

I’m sick and tired of being sick and tired of the main television media ignoring American Indian issues in general, and I’m even more sick and tired of conservative personalities spewing their racist venom towards American Indians. I think Olbermann would cover the critical issue of Pretty Bird Woman House if he were asked to by enough of us, but let’s look at some spewing of racist venom towards American Indians by conservative personalities first after a generalized observation of mine.

Crossposted at Native American Netroots

Nov 19 2007

The Missed Opportunity

Some may not believe this, but I have been bending over backwards trying to become a solid supporter of Barack Obama. I really do believe he has a bundle of political talent and generally holds sound views on most issues. But as I have written since 2006, he has simply failed to be the type of Democratic politician we need in this political climate (See my many posts on Obama for more detail.)

Recognizing this problem, Matt Yglesias defends Obama:

I also think I should take my hat off to Hillary Clinton’s campaign — I think this has been less a failure on Obama’s part, then cleverness on Clinton’s. She’s managed to position herself on foreign policy issues in a way that signals her differences with Obama very clearly to the tiny community of specialists while completely blurring them to the broader audience of voters. I’m not sure how this can be overcome . .

I am sure how it can be done and should have been done for the past year at least – by leading on the issues NOW. As Markos writes:

I don’t know how many times I’ve written this, and maybe I’m just wasting my time, but rather than talk about leadership, Obama and Clinton could actually shows us what that leadership looks like by fighting to prevent the Senate from capitulating on Iraq.

Honestly, Yglesias, like too many Left wonks, has been oblivious to what Congress can do on Iraq. It is a terrible blind spot. For them, if it is not in a position paper, Foreign Affairs article or “big speech,” it as if it does not exist. Look at his lament:

I’m not sure how this can be overcome, but I’m sure it can’t be overcome by having writers further obscure the differences by focusing primarily on what a good job Clinton’s done of obscuring them.

The basic reality is that each and every time the candidates stake out a position on something, Clinton takes a less-liberal line. Then each and every time Obama starts getting traction with the argument that Clinton is too hawkish, she backtracks and makes the argument that there’s no real difference here. And it’s true that if you look at any one thing with a microscope, the “no difference” argument can be made to stick. But it’s the pattern that matters . . .

This is, in a word, absurd. There are no substantive differences on what to do NOW, despite attempts by Yglesias and others to pretend there are, among the Big 3. The only candidate who has made real differences on these big issues has been Chris Dodd – by leading NOW.

Unfortunately, Dodd just seems unable to get any traction. Partly because writers like Matt Yglesias pay no attention to what the Congress can do on Iraq. Maybe they would if OBAMA leads in the Senate NOW.

Nov 19 2007

Four at Four

  1. The Independent reports Here it is: the future of the world, in 23 pages.

    This is the key document on climate change, and from now on you can forget any others you may have read or seen or heard about. This is the one that matters. It is the tightly distilled, peer-reviewed research of several thousand scientists, fully endorsed, without qualification, by all the world’s major governments. Its official name is a mouthful: the Policymakers’ Summary of the Synthesis Report of the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Fourth Assessment. So let’s just call it The Synthesis.

    It is so important because it provides one concise, easily-readable but comprehensive text of facts, figures and diagrams – in short all the information you need to understand and act on the threat of global warming, be you a politician, a businessman, an activist or a citizen (or for that matter, a doubter)…

    For all but the most perverse of sceptics, it ends the basic argument. And it also urgently warns that the risks are greater, and possibly closer in time, than was appreciated even six years ago, when the third assessment was published.

    Because all governments adopted The Synthesis by consensus (after a week’s negotiations in Valencia), it means they cannot disavow the underlying science and its conclusions (although it does not commit them to specific courses of action).

  2. One such impact of our changing climate, reports the Washington Post is the Threat to farming and food supply. Higher temperatures from climate change ” — along with salt seepage into groundwater as sea levels rise and anticipated increases in flooding and droughts — will disproportionately affect agriculture in the planet’s lower latitudes, where most of the world’s poor live.” India with a possible 40 percent decline, Africa with a possible 30 to 50 percent decline, and even Latin America is likely to suffer a 20 percent decline in agricultural production. “The United States will experience significant regional shifts in growing seasons, forcing new and sometimes disruptive changes in crop choices… A recent study… concluded that wheat growers in North America will have to give up some of their southernmost fields in the next few decades… That means amber waves of grain will be growing less than 2 degrees south of the Arctic Circle, and Siberia will become a major notch in the wheat belt.”

  3. Trying to reduce the source of climate change is causing dilemmas for many communities. For example, The Oregonian reports in Oregon and Washington state Emissions goals set; now comes hard part. The states “set aggressive goals to cut greenhouse gas emissions, but actually meeting those goals could prove much tougher — and more costly — than leaders expect.” The area is booming and coal-fired power plants provide 20 percent of the Pacific Northwest’s electrical supply. “The challenge will be even greater if salmon protections further limit operations of hydroelectric dams… That sets up a troubling Catch-22, in which salmon suffer as global warming raises river temperatures, forcing extra protections that reduce the amount of electricity from dams. If the lost power is made up by coal- or natural gas-fired power plants, they’d release more greenhouse gases that add to global warming.”

    Another pair of tough choices is confronting Fort Collins, Colorado. The New York Times reports that A deeply green city confronts its energy needs and nuclear worries. Two proposed energy projects could help the city meets its goal “to produce zero-carbon energy… one involves crowd-pleasing, feel-good solar power, and the other is a uranium mine… Environmentalism and local politics have collided with a broader ethical and moral debate about the good of the planet, and whether some places could or should be called upon to sacrifice for their high-minded goals.” But, “the solar project… plans to use a new manufacturing process [that] will use cadmium – a hazardous metal linked to cancer – as part of the industrial process.” and the uranium mine would “drill down through part of an aquifer”.

    While The New York Times reports that Chinese dam projects are criticized for their human costs. “Chinese officials have admitted that the dam was spawning environmental problems like water pollution and landslides that could become severe… The rising controversy makes it easy to overlook [that] the Three Gorges Dam is the world’s biggest man-made producer of electricity from renewable energy… The Three Gorges Dam, then, lies at the uncomfortable center of China’s energy conundrum: The nation’s roaring economy is addicted to dirty, coal-fired power plants that pollute the air and belch greenhouse gas emissions that contribute to global warming. Dams are much cleaner producers of electricity, but they have displaced millions of people in China and carved a stark environmental legacy on the landscape.”

  4. Lastly, despite the realty of our changing climate, don’t expect corporations to willingly change their polluting ways. The Guardian reports We’ll fight you all the way, airlines warn EU over carbon-trading plans. “British and other European governments face a long diplomatic battle if they push ahead with plans to include airlines in a European emissions trading scheme, the global aviation body has warned. The International Air Transport Association (Iata) said 170 countries opposed a proposal… to make all airlines flying in and out of the European Union subscribe to the EU emissions trading scheme. Non-EU airlines are lobbying their governments to reject the move, arguing that it will impose billions in extra costs on an industry that makes a global profit of just $5.6bn (£2.7bn)… Carriers have until 2011 to join power stations, refineries and heavy industry in the trading scheme, an integral part of the EU’s plan to cut carbon dioxide emissions from its 27 nations by 20% by 2020.”

This is the afternoon’s open thread.

Nov 19 2007

The President as Baseball Manager

In baseball, the objective truth is the best managers only allow your team to win three or four more games a year – out of a total of 162 games played during the regular season.

The athletes on the field are the ones who determine the outcome of the game. After all, there are only so many times you can pull the old ‘double switch’ to your advantage in nine innings.

If your pitchers are on their game, and your hitters do a good job of keeping their eye on the ball, you’ll have a good chance of winning on any given day.

Nov 19 2007

Luck and responsibility

Reading the comments in OPOL’s diary, last night, I was struck, once again, by the sheer dumb luck with which some of us have been blessed. Some, in that thread, discussed their experiences in prison, and it made me wonder how many of us have made mistakes, in life, but managed to avoid serious consequences from them. How many of us have done things that shouldn’t be illegal, but are, without getting caught? How many of us did not live through an era when the government could have grabbed us off the streets for not being willing to go fight a war that never should have been fought- and where we had to choose how to protest and oppose that fact? Luck. But it goes beyond that.

One of the things that seems to define we Democrats, liberals, and progressives, as opposed to the Republicans and conservatives, is that we understand the concept of luck, or random chance. Many Republicans and conservatives tend to think they are entitled to their good fortune, and a good portion even seem to think their good fortune was ordained directly by the Divine. Those who do not have good fortune seem to think they are being punished, or that they can pray or do some sort of penance, to essentially buy good fortune. That’s a fundamental difference between the way they perceive reality and the way most of us perceive it.

To believe you are entitled or ordained to have good fortune is to believe that others- the vast majority of the people on the planet- were entitled or ordained to have bad fortune. It obviates the need for social responsibility. If the good goes to the just and the holy, then those denied the good deserve what they get. It’s actually a pathological way of viewing the world, yet it is taken for granted as legitimate.

When I was thirty years old, I was diagnosed with cancer. It was a type of cancer that has a high survival rate, but it meant I had to undergo brutal chemotherapy and radiation treatments. In the midst of those treatments, when I was bald and frail and in constant pain, a friend asked if I ever wondered “why me?” The thought hadn’t occurred to me. As I told my friend, the thought had actually struck me: why not me? One in three Americans will, at some point, contract cancer. Some of it can be traced to clear causes, and some can’t. It’s random. It just is. Why not me?

Many of us have been very blessed in life. Many of us have had very mixed luck. Many of us have had terrible luck. Many of us have been struck by true tragedies or traumas. I would like to say that we all deserve the good, but I’m more of a realist than that. None of us deserves the good, and none of us deserves the bad. Life is not about just desserts. Life is about what we learn, what we think, what we feel, and what we do. All we can do is try. Try to be better people. Try to make this a better world. Try to muddle on, despite life’s many setbacks.

I do believe that one of the things that defines most Democrats, liberals, and progressives is the recognition that we are all in this together. Those who are more fortunate have a responsibility to help those who are less fortunate. We all have the responsibility to try to make this world a better place for all, just for our briefly having been here. I think that’s one of the basic reasons why all of us are here, on this site. We have many personal differences, many angry arguments, and many differences in background, lifestyle, taste, and fortune. But we all want to make the world a better place, for everyone. From issues of war and peace, economic and social justice, environmentalism, and everything else, the core of our ethos seems to include the concept that no one is entitled, and no one is ordained. Unless we all are. Either way, it’s up to us to make it happen.

This can be a cruel, cold world. Only we can make it warmer and more welcoming.

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